001Sorry. Our personnel committee will come to order. Roll call. >> Miss Virginia Bell, >> present. >> Miss Linda Cheney, >> present. >> Miss Joyce Porter. >> Dr. Kelly Joseph, >> here. >> Miss Miranda Watson, >> here. Miss Donna Jackson, >> you want to do >> Oh, she's coming in. >> Okay. >> Good evening. >> Okay. >> Miss Porter. >> Okay. >> All right. The first item on the agenda is to receive personal updates and workforce dashboard. Good evening. I get started with the personal report. It's short. Um we did have some movement and some good movements. uh although it's not as what we wanted it to be this month, but we are taking steps to make sure that our kids are receiving the instruction that they need in the classroom. So, we had two new
002hires to take place over the uh this past month and you'll see their effective start dates there in the right hand column. Then, we also had one, it's it says uh resignation, but it's actually a retirement for that one person. And you note the vacancies as listed below. Um the last one at on the list is is at SHA. The other the other ones are at the high school at the college and career. >> Yes. On the next uh page you see the human resources dashboard. Last month we did have our alternative certification meeting. We had Dr. uh Britney Henya. She's from Southern University and she was out. She did a great presentation to our uncertified teachers. She provided them with a lot of information, a lot of information. She also gave them contacts and
003resources that they can use even if they do not select her program. They do have offer practice courses that will help prepare them for the practice exam. So I thought it was real nice for her to even if they didn't go with that program she will offer them to pay for they have to pay for it of course that one course to help them with practice support and she said it's a good u success rate in that course if they take it so they were very excited uh they had a lot of engagement with her so it it was really nice uh a really nice meeting and then we also after that the following week we had our educator support meetings and these are the meetings where we go in from each school site school
004space and we talk to Um we allow the the teachers to come in, they sit down and they have their own individual questions that they have about their certification process. Some was about which exam to take uh and then others was about their next steps as to what would be the best move for them. And so it there was pretty good meetings. Not all came but we did have a good turnout for those uh uncertified educator support meetings. And then a couple of things that we did with our staff to let them know that we love them. Um on October 30th we did our custodian appreciation lunch and that was re it was really really nice. You'll see the setup here to your left. It was really nice. They had a nice cooler lunch bag
005and we stuffed it as much as we could with a whole lot of goodies. Um and they also had lunch prepared that was served by the central office staff. They didn't have to do anything. they were really waited on and you'll see their pictures below. Um all the staff there with their goodies there. So that was a really nice event. We enjoy it was a good day. And that same day was also the week for school uh bus national school bus safety week. We also acknowledge our bus drivers and u thank them by providing them with cards and we also gave them a nothing but cake um on their morning delivery on their morning not delivery on their morning drop offs. So, uh, they can know that they are appreciated, too, because they do a
006lot. They do a lot. Double route. So, we're grateful to them. So, we want to acknowledge them, let them know that we are grateful for them. U making sure our kids get to school and home safely. And then just a few statistics below, you'll see where the college and career is 80% staff. Now, they only have last month was seven vacancies. This month is six vacancies cuz we have that one person. At SHA, we still have that one vacant that we are trying to uh get filled. So there's 95% staff with teachers and the ELC is 100% staff with their teachers. Do you have any questions about anything? >> Any questions? >> Oh, I do want to note that also proximity learning has started and those uh vacancies. So they are receiving instructions in the
007classrooms. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. That concludes the personnel committee. Budget finance will come to order. Miss Virginia Bell. >> Miss Linda Cheney >> present. >> Miss Lolita Porter >> present. >> Dr. Kelly Joseph >> here. >> Miss Ashley Castle >> here. >> Miss Tracy Wac. >> All members are present. >> Okay. Uh first item is to receive and consider for approval the elimination of the bus app and replacement with the camera system due to low parent registration and insurance requirements. Yes. So, uh, committee members, um, as you know, we we have a new fleet of buses, and those buses now include cameras, which is a really good thing, uh, because now we found out that we are required to have uh, dash cameras on our buses. So, that worked out for the
008good. Um so also looking at what we have currently through our bus view app if you look at the handout that I provided you it gives you a cost um associated with the bus view app. So uh the cost per year is $9,396. We've had the bus view app now for five years and only uh 99 subscriptions were created. Then we also have additional costs. Uh to print the cards is $1,850 a year. Um for the learn account is 1,033 and supplies that we need to get is averaging $130 a year. So the total investment per year for the bus view app is 11,376. and over the course of the length of time we've had this service has been uh over $56,000. So what I'm asking is that we uh eliminate the bus view app
009because we have not seen a good return on our investment. Although it is a good program where kids um you know when they get on the bus they have to swipe the card and then the parents if they have the app they're able to locate their their child or their children um while they're on the bus they'll know what time the bus gets to their home um what time the bus will be arriving in the morning and all of those things. But however we've only had 99 subscriptions. So, in light of the fact that we will have to uh pay for a service to ensure the cameras, all of the cameras are working on each bus, I'm asking that we eliminate the bus view app and use those funds to pay for uh the services
010for the cameras required on the buses. Okay? Okay. And these would just be cameras, right? It wouldn't be any type of interaction. These would just be the cameras. >> Yes. Now, >> okay. >> The cameras are already installed. We just have to, you know, get the service >> change service. >> Yes. >> Will that service uh cost that total 56? Uh >> that's what we don't know. >> We just received notice that we have to have the service on the buses. So, we'll be looking at, you know, of course, looking to see how much it's going to cost. >> Okay. And and um those apps will allow you, I guess, to to save the the >> footage, do whatever needed to save. >> Yes. >> Yep. Yes. >> Okay. Any other questions about that item?
011So if a parent want to know where our bus was and so what would be the next what would how would they know where that bus is if we take this? >> We would just have to revert back to what we originally did and we have to you know call the bus driver find out the location of the bus driver and let the parent know. >> Well, you know this maybe this will help you know with with movement. I hear a lot of times students are up and moving on the buses. So maybe if there's a camera that you can see that, maybe that'll help with some of that movement because to me that's that's very dangerous to have children moving around on them. So this camera system will help >> because we didn't have
012anything before, right? I mean we just had this tracking system. We didn't have any type of visuals on cameras. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Will it be audio recording as well with the camera? >> Well, that's what we would have to find out once we go and search what types of services are available. That would be good to have video and audio. Get video and audio. That would be great. >> A system that will provide both of those. >> All right, I'll add that to the list. >> Can I get a motion? >> So move. >> Okay, got a motion. >> Second and a second. Any other questions? >> Vote. Miss News. Miss Virginia Bell. >> Yes. >> Miss Linda Cheney. >> Yes. >> Miss Lolita Porter. >> Yes. >> 30 motion care. Refer to
013the full board to vote. Okay. Item four, receive Louisiana asset management pool lamp or labor report. >> This is regions. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Can we move on to the next item? >> Okay. Uh receive ASB SFO report on big pens donation from school district. >> Hello. How's everyone? Um Dr. Joseph and the board and St. Helina. Um, I'm Miss Scula, the director of finance here. I was awarded the opportunity to attend the ASPO conference in Fort Worth, Texas to further my professional education and strengthen my capacity to support the district within the finance department. During the conference, I had the opportunity to connect with Miss Monnique Beecher. She's the national account manager for BIC. So big the pens uh they have the lighters they do have pens pencils mechanical pencils and things of
014that nature. So during that time we established a partnership to provide a donation to our district. So each learner employee schoolboard member every employee will receive a big donation. So it may be a little packet full of things from big and we should receive that on Tuesday November 18th. Wonderful. >> So, we will take some photos and send them a thank you and I hope to continue this partnership with our district. >> That's great. >> So, thank you again for the opportunity to go to the conference and I hope um me going to these conferences create more partnerships and we get more donations and contributions to our district. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Miss G. [Music] Um, number six, receive regions and district quarterly report. >> We have Mr. John Larson who is going to present
015from regions. >> Can you hear me, M? >> Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Joseph. And thank you to the committee for allowing me to present uh this afternoon. I will share my screen uh and then I'm going to forward this presentation to uh the committee afterwards. you just have it for your records. So bear with me as it pulls up. Okay, it's telling me that sharing. So I'll go through it. So the data that I'm going to go through, I'm not going to spend a lot of time, but you're welcome to ask any questions you have and I'll spend as much time as you like. I'll give you a high level overview about the portfolio, how it's positioned, and kind of what we're seeing on the horizon in order to maximize yield in this environment.
016The data that we're going to look at is as of the most recent month end, October 31. So that's the latest clean data we have available. So uh looking at the overview as of October 31st the portfolio was valued at 2 million $1001,830% of that is still active in bonds right now short-term US Treasury bonds and the remainder the round up to 65 66% is in the government only money market fund. So, it's a daily liquid money market fund that gets daily interest. Right now, that yield for that money market is just shy of 4%. I believe the last I saw about 3.95%. It's going to kind of fluctuate more very closely to what the Fed funds what Jerome Pal will do with the overnight Fed funds rates. So, that's been in the news a
017lot lately about how much he's going to cut or not cut. So, right now, if he he just cut back on October 29, I believe 25 basis points. And that's why we see it sub 4% now. It was about four and a quarter up until that cut. The the there's another meeting coming up in early December, December 10th, I believe. And the odds of a rate cut is about 50 50% right now. So if they may cut, they do not cut. So anyway, I say all that to say that right now it's about that one 384,000 earning about 3.95%. If they cut, that rate will be closer to about 3.75% by year end. and then 2026 likely see a couple more cuts. So, you know, worst case scenario, we're in the mid 3% range, but
018considering where we were just a few years back, that's not so bad. So, um but it's it's obviously a far cry from the, you know, high water mark we saw maybe 18 months ago when it was about 5% or so. On the bottom right hand graph, you can kind of see where the portfolio has been and where hopefully it'll continue to go. I like that upward trajectory. Obviously, the only rough patch we saw was back in 2022 when interest rates spiked very dramatically very quickly and that put downward pressure on the existing bonds where we we turned a corner since that period thankfully and now uh anything that we invest in you you get a real meaningful 3% three and a half pushing 4% on a good day yield on the bonds that we purchase.
019So that that's really the good news. Looking at performance, uh, put in several time periods. I put a three-month column, a year-to- date, calendar year, 2025, year-to- date period, and then the trailing 12 month, and then the three-year. Anything further out from one year. So, so I guess the three-year and the inception, those are annualized returns. So, when you look at that three-year return of 4.56%, that's what the portfolio is averaged yeartoear for the last three years. So it's a very strong and a truly a reflection of the the more normalized I'm using air quotes normalized rate environment where yields are much higher and uh as opposed to how it was you know back when we began initially investing when rates were you know next to nothing. So we've thankfully turned a corner and now
020going forward we can expect hopefully three 3% plus for the foreseeable future. We can see year to date just in the 10 months in 2025 a nice year so far. The portfolio is up 3.63% and then uh for the trailing 12 going back November 1 last year to now up 4.4%. How had this what did this 4.4% look like in in dollar terms? You can see this time last year started about $2,10,000 3 $370 a little bit of acred income. That's income that the bonds that are that that's owed to you. That's the owed to the account. It just hasn't hit yet. So essentially, if we sold on that initial day, you're still owed that 5,183. It just hadn't hit the account yet. So it's acred income. Net withdrawals over the years, uh, that's actually
021the the entire region's fee, uh, I believe minus $2,200. The income earned during the year, 54,379 plus the market appreciation. And so the market appreciation would be bonds that be purchased at a discount. So you know bonds are you know kind of kind of funny like that you can you buy them either at par value meaning you just buy it at 100 even par value and then you get all your income from the coupons or you can buy at a discount. Let's say par the par value is 100. Remember we can buy a discount. Let's say you buy it at 95 or 96. It will accrete. It will slowly accrete as it gets closer to maturity. It'll get closer and closer to that par value. So that would be the market appreciation. So, it's it's
022still yours. Uh, it just it's looks different than a pure income. So, either way, it it's uh in the account and over the last 12 months, the earnings, the income plus the market appreciation came to $88,485. And that's how we've derived the 4.4% for the last year. [Music] And then the remainder of the portfol presentation is just a listing of the bonds that are still existing in the portfolio. I have two page four and five. It's the same information. There's slightly different columns with different data such as maybe annual income or the cost basis, whatever it is. So, you can kind of toggle when I send that over to to take a look at different bonds. Some of these bonds are are thankfully they're they're rolling off very soon. One's coming up the end of
023November. Then we have another one in February of 2026, March 2026, April. you know, basically they all will deplete and roll off and fully mature uh by the end of uh summer of 2026, which is a good thing. Some of these are bonds that we purchased back when interest rates were ultra low. So, we'll be thankful for these to finally roll off like the have already. And so, we can get rid of the, you know, get rid of the the old the lower yielding bonds and then roll it into much higher yielding bonds, make it more meaningful yield for you. I'm going to stop sharing just a moment just so perhaps happy to answer any questions. Um, and while you might be thinking of questions a little bit more information about funds, you know, as
024we know, you know, I mentioned from the outset how the Fed is, you know, sort of in the phase two of the rate cutting cycle. This time last year, they cut about 100 basis points all collectively about 1% total. Um, how they took a pause. They're worried about inflation. So, you know, now they're more worried about the maybe some slowing job market, the data. So, because of that, they, you know, they they they want to keep rates elevated to slow down inflation, but they don't want to keep them elevated for too long because that will have a detrimental effect on overall employment and jobs and just our overall economy. So, he's so the Fed is trying to balance on that fine line. Uh so that's why going forward we'll likely see more rate cuts because
025he just doesn't want to keep the economy you know growing. That being said short-term rates will be declining and and because short-term rates will be declining might have a little more opportunity finally finally have more opportunity we haven't had it before to make a little bit more yield on the you know the longer end of the curve. When I say longer in terms of the school board that we work with you know I'm talking maybe one to two to three years maximum. So, and I just want to put that out there as nothing actionable today, but something that we can discuss going forward to see if it would make sense to get back onto a more normalized um ladder bond investment strategies where we can take advantage of the better yields further out maybe two
026years or so and have a a good steady ladder of let's say you know $100,000 $200,000 whatever it may be maturing every month. So you have that good rolling liquidity coming up but also able to take advantage of lock in some rates while we still can but we know that short-term money market will be slowly declining. So just want to offer that out there we can have further discussions about that strategy as well. Just one quick question. Because they're they're US Treasury bonds, there's no risk, right? Regardless of the of the year, there's no risk with those. >> Absolutely no risk. Absolutely. These are the highest quality. Uh well, so I say no risk, but I have to, you know, just full disclosure, they're actually technically double A. They used to be AAA, but the
027range agency, they did lower to double A, but as far as anyone's concerned globally, these are these are backed explicitly by the full faith of the US government. So unless the government defaults uh which you know that you would never think that would ever happen. These are these are 100% guaranteed and they do these investments are allowable by all Louisiana state statutes. They do follow those those guidelines as well. So basically these are these the highest quality we can buy. I I I can't get any higher quality going out and and that's the good thing too is that in this environment even these are typically in the past you to have AAA or double A the highest quality you you take a a yield you know haircut if you will. So these in this environment
028where rates are so high, you have the peace of mind of having uh you know the highest quality available, but you're also getting paid. You're also getting some good yield where in the past maybe you'll get 2% 2 and a half% you would have to kind of dabble in the the corporate bond world in order to get the higher yield. That's not the case. So this has been a very strong last few years where it would get good high uh yielding bonds but not to take any credit risk. Well, that's I remember one time seems like S&P or somebody was downgrading the the the country's fund because of our issues we're having with the government, but um they're still at a double A. So, I guess that's that's still good, right? >> Yeah, we're we're
029in great shape. I would still have full confidence in these bonds uh that you know it, you know, the rate is there just long story short, there are three ratings agencies. Uh two of them already cut from AAA to double A back in like know 2011 and then another one did in 2019. So there's only one hold out that was still holding on in AAA in this that third uh ratings group I think it was yeah S&P like you said that finally downgraded. So it's they're the last one to do it where the other ones had done it before everything was fine uh with the other two downgrades was this final third one that got a lot of press. Can you also explain um how the interest rates are being cut um and how that
030is going to impact us and how that is compared to our um interest rates from the very beginning of our you know partnership. >> Yes, great great question Dr. K. So right now the rate market is more fluid. you know, there goes periods where there's no cuts, there's no raises, it's just, you know, stay. Right now, we are definitively in a cutting environment. So, the the the Federal Reserve headed up by Jerome Pow. He's in charge of kind of setting the benchmark rate for the country. It's kind of a trickle down effect. He sets the Fed funds rate at whatever 4%. And from there, it goes to the banks, the banks take account, it goes from there, it goes from there. You know, it basically it starts from with the Fed. So, the Fed starts
031cutting. It means, you know, there's that again that trickle down effect where rates will get lower or you and I, you know, we go to get a loan for businesses when they get a loan. So, it has a a ripple effect that's positive honestly when when you start cutting rates because it just means that you have to we pay less interest. Now on the other side of that is that when they cut rates it it's to the detriment of investors like the let's say oh their school board and all the other school boards and all the other government entities or essentially anyone that's investing in short-term treasuries they're not able to get as much yield as they had previously. So if a cut takes place u today they obviously aren't going to make as much
032money on a new bond that they purchased uh versus if they bought one a year ago for example. But the I I'll put the but the uh you know take take a step back better perspective is that when we first started partnering with uh the school board back in 2021 uh with the initial investment of 2 million the rate environment was it was the lowest I've ever seen. It was just it was almost non-existent there rates were next to nothing. Money markets were paying um I mean really nothing. I mean, they they they said, "Hey, sorry. If you give us money, we're not really going to give you hardly anything and hope that's okay." That's just how it was. The rates were so low because we were we were going into the going through the
033pandemic and the Fed with Pal at the time he he cut rates really to zero just to help stimulate the economy. There was so much concern globally about you know the growth of the economy of the global economy. Well, so when we first started investing the rates were much lower. We were so the only way to get any yield whatsoever, we knew we couldn't get it in the money market funds. We're paying nothing. We knew we couldn't get it in even the short-term bonds. We had to go out to about four years to really get anything meaningful at that time. We get about 1%. 1% was basically about it. So that's that's what you see in the portfolio today. the remaining few bonds that were that were purchased initially that are maturing you know in
034in a couple months uh those are the ones that the loan hold outs from what we first a long time ago back when money was paying nothing. So in order to get even 1% for anybody we had to go out about four or four or five years and those are rolling off. So that that's that's sort of the the wild kind of whole full cycle that we've seen where rates were next to nothing when we first started investing. Now we're letting the bonds mature and we can now finally get money yielding a lot more for you because the rate environment has changed so drastically since since 2021. So it's it's changed a lot and definitely to the benefit of of not only the school board but really anyone who invests in short-term treasuries. Now is
035as good a time as any where you can get risk-free um 3% 4% yield wouldn't be could tra you know when we're starting 2021. So even with the reduction or the cuts uh in the interest rate, it's not going to be as low as it was when we first started in 2021. >> No, you're correct. It it will not. That that was an exceptional period where I it's it's never supposed to be that low. It was only that low because it was such a it's just such an enormous calamity for the globe to have this pandemic. Uh basically everybody cut their rates to zero. I don't see that ever happening again unless, you know, god forbid there's another global calamity. But I'd say the the goal, the long-term goal for the Fed, and they this
036is how mine is, is to get the the Fed funds rates closer to about two to two and a half%. So that'll be sort of, you know, I'd say I'd say maybe three years down the line perhaps we'll see money market rates that, you know, two to two and a half%. I think we're still a long way from there. So, we're still comfortably in the 3% plus range, but to to your point, Dr. Joseph, no, it's getting down to the 1% and less than 1%. I don't see that happening uh in the foreseeable future in virtually any scenario. >> Thank you. Any questions, committee members, board members? >> So, we're in a good position. >> You really are. You're in an excellent position. Short-term rates are great. You're making guaranteed good money. um that that
037thing we need to think about going forward is just how if we want to kind of structure it to to lock in some yields um now when while they're still good anticipation of them potentially falling but we still have time we don't have to do anything tonight or anything like that but I'd say over the next uh you know month or so we'll have some more discussions about doing a short-term treasury ladder kind of like how we initially did it but instead instead this time we're going to make some real money instead of the 1% uh stuff back in the day. >> Thank you very much. Of course. My pleasure. Well, thank you very much on behalf of Regions. We really thank you for the partnership. We really enjoy working with you and thank you
038for allowing me to present tonight. >> All right. Have a good evening. Thanks. >> Thank you. You too. >> And now we have Mr. Sanders in the audience. He can now come up and present on behalf of Louisiana Asset Management Pool, also known as the land. >> Good evening everyone. >> Good evening. >> Hope everyone is doing well. I did bring uh a copy of a presentation to share with the board. Uh sure just to give you uh an overview of LAMP of uh those of you that are not familiar with LAMP. Uh this will give you just uh some high points on you know what LAMP is and what we do for you. Um, once you pass that around, I can go over our So, Lent was created back in 1994 as uh a
039fund to help Louisiana local governments and political subdivisions to invest uh their tax dollars, uh funds that we invest for you, your general funds, bond proceeds, and whichever that you may have to place in any types of investment. The fund is overseen by the Louisiana State Treasures Office, currently the state treasures, Dr. Fleming, uh, who serves as the president of our board of directors. We also have our board of directors, similar to you guys that are elected by our members each year. We just elected our new members at our annual meeting last week. My office handles the day-to-day operations. I'm the uh the CEO of the fund. I have a CEO and other staff that works in our office in New Orleans that uh works with the day-to-day fund of uh of managing the fund.
040Uh we've seen a significant growth within the fund and which I'll show you on on a couple pages ahead uh since inception of the fund. Um on page four here just sort of tells you who are the participants in the fund. uh school boards, individual schools, assessors, retirement systems. You can see a lot of entities that you're familiar with here that participates uh within LAMP. Uh on page five just gives you uh who our current board of directors are. Uh some familiar names. We do have representations from schools that participate on our board as well. So we've had school board members. We've had I'm sorry, school business officials. We also had school board members and superintendents have participated on our board as well throughout the tenure of land. The other couple of pages sort of
041gives you the objectives of the fund. Uh one preservation of principle which is very important to us and very important to you as well. following the state guidelines, being able to provide daily liquidity whenever you need funds. Uh the money is there available to you on a daily basis. Uh and being competitive, making sure that we're getting the best rate of return that we could get for you uh to to to help you gain some interest on your funds that you have with us. Uh we feel that lamp brings a a good benefit and service to our members by investing the funds and hiring professional manager uh bringing the fund accounting and making sure it's an easy in easy out for whenever you need your funds. You should get uh monthly statements from us. Uh
042we have a customer service team that answers calls uh on a daily basis. Uh and then we're making sure that we send out newsletters to you to make sure that you understand what's happening in the market as well. So we are communicating with you to make sure that uh you're getting all the information that's uh to understand what what the investments are doing. We have an online portal. That portal allows you to go online and move money to from whenever you need to uh through a secure process. You could have unlimited accounts. You can set up future data transactions. These are the things that allows you to operate within the fund with with u moving money whenever you need to. Those are the things that allow us to work with you as well. On page
04310, uh as I mentioned earlier, this gives you an overview of sort of where the fund is overall. Uh our net assets today is about 6.4 billion. So we we're investing $6.4 billion across the state. uh down the line here kind of shows you we're working with 932 participants uh 6,500 accounts on our system. Uh just to back up a little bit, the average rate it's about 4.07 right now. And then you'll see the rate since inception uh over the period of time that the fund has been in existence. I did provide a pie chart on page 11 of this overview. Uh just to give you some background as to who participating and how they're participating as well. School, school boards and universities are lumped together. They're our number one depositor throughout the state. So
044we work with uh just about all the school districts across the state, individual schools, charter schools, the UL system, the southern system, their institutions as well, all lumped up into our schools and school boards, our number one depositor. You'll see that municipalities, our second largest depositor, police, jurors, and other entities that participate within the fund around this pie chart. We feel that we bring no surprises. Lamp is a tripleam rated fund by standard and pores. Uh excellent client services. Uh we're audited by Louisiana Leg of audit each year. We've had no audit findings since inception of the fund. Uh our investment consultant is UBS which is a global investment consulting firm. uh our investment consultant works with our investment manager on a weekly basis to make sure that all the all the eyes are dotted,
045all the tees are crossed on making sure that the fund follow all the controls that it needs to to operate. So that's just an overview of the fund. I'd like to go over with you what you currently have at LAMP. Uh we're happy to have been working with you the past couple years. Uh just to give you from the some information from the beginning of the year through today, the average uh yield for the period has been 4.36%. Uh currently we have a total of about 1.5 million uh from the school board 1.5 a little bit more than 1.5 million but 1590. Uh the interest for the period of of the beginning of the year through today has been $58,971. Uh there's two accounts. Uh one account has got uh about 1.2 million. The other
046is about 323,000. So that makes up the 1.5. The rates as uh you guys heard the last presentation are changing. Obviously the Fed have reduced the rates over the past couple of months. We've seen some rate reductions recently. There's possibly going to be a rate reduction again in December. Uh our investment consultants and managers seems that maybe in 2026 they're going to slow down because of the way the economy is going to work out that we may not see many as many rate cuts next year. Uh LAMP is able to provide a really competitive rate uh because we we have investments that are locked in for about nine months. So we're able to be into those higher rates of returns right now. So as the Fed reduced the rates, it doesn't affect us the whole
04725 basis points and maybe half, maybe 12. Uh but we do have seen the rates come we have seen the rates come down. You know really last year and the year before the past three years right after the pandemic we saw the rates get over nearly 6%. But now we're seeing them you know go in a different direction. We don't see the rates going in the in the way that the pandemic was before and how the rates were like through the mortar crisis and credit crisis even in 2007 to 2017. Uh we don't anticipate the rates to look like that again. I mean there was very trying times when we saw the rates were a whole lot different uh and that we were just scraping at the bottom of the of the rail to try
048to make sure that we're able to at least pay you something. Uh but we did get through those time periods. Be happy to answer any questions you all may have. Uh that's all I have to report to you today. And I know that uh we have been sending you monthly statements. We're definitely happy to come out and present to you whenever you request us to come by. Uh love to come out and and make sure we're providing that information to you. >> Thank you, Mr. Sanders. >> Thank you very much. >> Good to see everyone. All right, >> Miss Tracy, that second account, that's service account. >> Just want to be clear. >> Okay. Uh, that concludes the budget and finance committee. Advisory committee. >> All right. The line advisory committee will come to order.
049Roll call. >> Pinch. >> Cassidy Kho, Michael Starks, Kaia Lewis, Hen Tillery, Tristan Burton, and Elise. >> First item, receive learners monthly report. Hello, I'm here to represent the seventh grade learners learn student advis advisory council and our seventh graders have started to engage in lessons very much and they're improving a lot than they used to. So that's next week. >> Uh we have a learner summit that's going to be coming up next week and there's going to be a special guest and we just advise you all to come. >> We have three topics that we're going to talk about is going to be leadership, respect, and purpose. Nice. >> Very good. >> Thank you. >> All right, that concludes the learner advisory committee. Moving right along. Mr. McFerson, can you lead us, please? [Music]
050Bow our heads. Most gracious heavenly father, we're thankful for life. We're thankful for the opportunity to make great decisions for this great community. Dear Lord, touch every mind here. And dear Lord, we ask that you give us the faith, the wisdom, and the courage to carry these plans out in a way that pleases you and in a spirit of excellence. In Jesus name, amen. >> Amen. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The meeting room will come to order. We are now holding a meeting of the St. Lind Parish School Board. Roll call. Miss George Porter, >> present. >> Mr. Ala Porter, >> present. >> Miss Linda Chain, >> present. >> Mr.
051George Hughes, >> present. >> Miss Virginia Bell, >> present. >> Sister Alton Travis, >> all members are present. >> Item B, approve minutes and agenda. October the 9th, 2025 committee meeting. October the 9th, regular board meeting. Can I get a motion to approve those two connected? >> I second >> motion and second motion by Miss George P. Second by Mr. George Hughes. No questions for general consent. item. Um, the next item is to approve the current agenda with an addendum under C. And item on this new business would be to request to have a special board meeting. All right. Can I get a a motion to approve the current agenda with the agenda? >> That's a move. >> Motion by Mr. George Huge. >> Second. Second by Miss Lolita Porter. Any questions? No question shall
052pass for general. Item C, new business, a request to have a special board meeting. >> Yes, board members, we received a request from um Josh McGee um who deals with our insurance to have a special board meeting next week to discuss um insurance for our um for our buses. So, I need for you all to decide what day next week you would be available. This has to happen before December 1. And as you know, we are off the last week of November for the Thanksgiving. So it would have to be one day next week. >> He couldn't be here tonight. >> He could not be here tonight. I think he's still getting information, still working on some things, but he has I believe is there two companies that are um wanting to do business with
053us and we have to have that information and everything approved by December before December 1. General general liability insurance and professional insurance >> I have shared for Tuesday Thursday I can't do Tuesday Thursday >> yeah excuse me board I just wanted to share that this is not only the um fleet insurance it's also the general liability as well as the educators professional coverage all of that expires at the end of November so we have to have this in place by December 1st. >> So what if we schedule a meeting tonight? Then it's not convenient for him. He should have gave us some options. >> I agree. >> Okay. He did. He said that he's working with the companies. He should have all of the information in by Tuesday. So Thursday would be good. It gives
054him time to work. Miss Bill can't be here. >> I mean, you could do it without me. Uh but I can't be here Thursday. >> Wednesday. I could be here Wednesday. >> Well, if if you all schedule Wednesday, he'll just have to work overnight Tuesday or >> Friday. >> Not Friday, ma'am. >> Yes, it is. >> It is. Okay. >> What time? >> 5:00. >> 5 What time? 5:30. >> Yeah. >> 5:30. 5:30. >> 5:30. >> George P. You at 5:30? Stop there. Find me. >> Okay. >> Is that Wednesday? >> Yeah. >> I'm seeing what the deer hunting forecast. >> Okay. So, can I get a motion that uh 5:30 Wednesday will be the special board meeting? >> November 19th. Oh, you know what? You might want to push to six. Six. So, can
055I get a motion that we have a special board meeting Wednesday at 6? >> Motion by Miss George Porters, second by Mr. George Hughes. Any questions? >> No question by general consent. Item is superintendent report. >> Yes. Good evening board members. Good evening community. We have a special presentation uh for Miss Charity Schaer with she's the assistant area extension agent. She will be presenting um about her steam expo presentation. Miss Schaer. Good evening everybody. My name is Dr. Charity Schaefer. I'll be presenting to you guys on um well I was due to present to you guys about a steam expo in Tanchoa Parish due to unforeseen circumstances. That one on the 22nd of November has been postponed. But I also wanted to pitch an idea to have a steam expo here in St. Helena Parish
056for our learners. Um I have some copies of our Steam Expo packet. It is our sponsorship opportunities for so the what I am working on is a tri parish steam initiative for the parishes of St. Helena Tanchoa Parish and Washington Parish. I have a partner in Washington Parish. Her name is Mrs. Taran Spikes Web. She owns the Washington Parish STEM and Innovation Center and we're working together to make sure that we are providing future focused hands-on opportunities for learners to um be immersed in steam. Our Steam Expo would um feature our uh leaders and powerhouses in um steam such as AT&T and NASA as well as local um local powerhouses like the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality or the Southeastern Louisiana um STEM and Outreach Center there. So, um, I was wondering if anyone would
057be interested in working with me to provide a STEM or steam expo here in St. Helena Parish. Okay. So, if anyone would like to work with me, uh, if you would like to be a part of the committee to bring this to life, um, I can give you my phone number. Um, that number is 985 5141806. Again, 985 5141806. And if you could just shoot me a text or give me a phone call, we can work out emails and I can um get you guys we can get started on a um a venue. And um that that packet that I gave you includes sponsorship opportunities and tiers in there for people who would like to give. So I would really love to work with someone who could help me with fundraising so that we can
058give our students the absolute best um steam expo possible and that would mean the world to me since I am a child of St. Helina Parish and a positive product of St. Helina Parish. Thank you very much, Dr. >> So, Dr. John Paul, we'll have you, you know, help spearhead that awesome opportunity for our learners along with Miss Joel Given who, you know, with the robotics team. All right. Uh, just a couple of announcements, board members. Um, I did go to the police jury meeting uh last night to share with them the issues that we have with some of the roads that our buses um use to drop kids off and pick kids up. And so that information, I believe, is within your packet. If not, I could give you a copy, but there's a
059list of a couple of work roads that need some work like some hanging tree limbs um and some minor road repairs. There's one big one that we're requesting that a culvert um is purchased so that we can widen a driveway for a turnabout or turnaround for one of the buses. But that is a list of things that we shared. I also shared with them and the community a call to action update. I gave them some information about our internship program. This year we have a total of 16 uh learners that are part that's a part of our internship program. And so we're very thankful for all of our partnerships from around the parish and for them stepping up to the plate to provide this awesome opportunity uh for our learners. We have one in the
060back right now, Carl Casten, who's working with Langos Productions as he's you know working to uh you know film our board meeting. And two things that we want to do this year. I want to remind everyone the first thing is we need to improve our test scores and the second thing we need to improve our parental and community support. So we are working hard every single day to focus on improving our test scores through three big areas. The first is ensuring quality of instruction. The second is to ensure mastery of content and the third is to use data to drive instruction. those three things working together will help improve or move the needle for our learners for this school year. So, we're really working hard. So, I'm proud of our administrators and our staff, our
061teachers for working um toward this common goal. And then also, we need more parental support and we need the community to support the kids of St. Helina Parish. Some things that they can do, they can come and visit the schools. we can have security dads, class moms, um that you know, everyone just makes positive comments about the school system, believe the facts and not the fiction, and solicit more partners. So, if you know of anyone who's willing to partner with the school system to help move the needle for our kids, bring them forward and let us know. We also want to remind everyone that we are franchise owners. We own Otis Buckmire Cookie Company. We also have a PJ's Coffee House. So, if anyone is interested in purchasing those delicious wings from PJs, please stop
062by and do so. We also have our Hawk debit card. If you have not gotten your Hawk debit card yet, I strongly advise you to do so. Every swipe will give us, you know, a couple of pennies on a dollar when every time you swipe that particular card. And also, if you want to stay connected with what's going on with the district, please download our district app. uh stay connected with us. It we share information on our social media platforms, on our website, on the app, and any other way that we can communicate with our um with our parents and everyone within the community. So, we're asking for that support for this school year. Just want to also share some upcoming events. We are in the first round of playoffs for uh football. Uh our
063football team will be traveling to a boy's high school that is about 2 and a half hours away. So as such we have to end school by 1:00 um tomorrow because uh the buses need to bring the kids, the band, the cheerleaders and everyone else to a boils and that will impact about eight routes. So um because of the huge disruption we will end school for 1:00 on tomorrow. So, we want to congratulate our Hawk football team and hopefully have a victory. November 19th is the literacy fair. Starts at 10:00 at the Early Learning Center. If you can please come out and watch our kids present their projects uh all centered around literacy. November 20th, um we have the learner summit at the high school starting at 12:15 and that is sponsored once again by
064our superintendent's advisory council and the focus is purpose, leadership and respect and we will have our special guest who will speak to our learners, Mr. L. Scott. Um also on November 20th, we have our district-wide parent night. It will be at the high school starting at 5:30. We will have entertainment. and he will now come out and sing to everyone. El uh Al the mayor Scott. We will have free pasta and drinks. We'll do line dancing with a splash of literacy. And we will also have door prizes. We'll be raffling off a television, a basket of cleaning supplies, huge basket of cleaning supplies, and two $25 gift cards, all donated by Miss Linda Lee and family. We also have a Thanksgiving lunch with parents. November 18th will be at the Early Learning Center. November 19th
065will be at the Arts and Technology Academy. And November 20th will be at the College and Career Academy, our high school. And we will be off for Thanksgiving break November 24th to through 28th. So I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving break. And that concludes my report. Item E, approve committee reports uh from November 13, 2025. Can I get a motion? >> Motion by Mr. Al Travis. >> Second by Mr. Virginia Bale. Any questions? No questions passed by general cons. Item F, executive session. Can I get a motion move into executive session? >> Motion by Mr. George here, second by Miss Porter. We shall return. >> Do we have it? The meeting room called I get a motion to return from executive session. I second >> motion by M. Joyce Per second by Mr. Joyce Hughes.
066Uh item of discussion was discussed. Item G, meeting closing. The next meeting date will be December 11th, 2025. Uh committee meeting starting at 5:45. Closing comments board member >> and our special board meeting will be on the Wednesday 19th 19th at 6:00. >> School board. any closer to me. Oh, Dr. Joseph [Music] testified that basket come from Miss Lind and Sh. That's right, Miss Linda Lee. But there's also the porters. That's the porters at the first district. Okay. >> Okay. Okay. Well, thank you. That's all I have to say. Any other comment, board members? >> No comments that found a motion. Oh, yes. I just had to give you